Independence Rock is a large granite rock, approximately 130 feet (40 m) high, 1,900 feet (580 m) long and 850 feet (260 m) wide, in southwestern Natrona County, Wyoming, along Wyoming Highway 220. During the middle of the 19th century, the rock was a prominent and well-known landmark on the Oregon, Mormon, and California emigrant trails. Many of these emigrants carved their names on the rock, and it was described by early missionary and explorer Father Pierre-Jean De Smet in 1840 as the Register of the Desert,[3] the site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 20, 1961.[2] It is now part of Independence Rock State Historic Site, owned and operated by the state of Wyoming.

There have been several theories regarding how the rock was carved. One explanation that comes from The History Channel[5] states that several stonecarvers set up shop on the rock and charged a small fee to carve names, this would explain the fact that some names appear to be from the same hand and are professional looking as well.

Photograph of names carved on Independence Rock, particularly of R. McCord in 1850

The rock derives its name from the fact that it lies directly along the route of the Emigrant Trail and that emigrant wagon parties bound for Oregon or California, which usually left the Missouri River in the early spring, attempted to reach the rock by July 4 (Independence Day in the United States), in order to reach their destinations before the first mountain snowfalls. John C. Frémont camped a mile below this site on August 1, 1843, and made this entry in the journal of his 1843-'44 expedition:[6]

"Everywhere within six or eight feet of the ground, where the surface is sufficiently smooth, and in some places sixty or eighty feet above, the rock is inscribed with the names of travelers. Many a name famous in the history of this country, and some well known to science, are to be found among those of traders and travelers..."

Fremont carved a large cross into the rock monolith, which was blasted off the rock on July 4, 1847 by some among hundreds of California and Oregon emigrants who had gathered on the site,[7] some Protestants considered the cross Fremont carved to be a symbol of the Pope and Catholicism.[7] John Frémont was actually a member of the United States Episcopal Church.[8]

On July 4, 1862, Independence Rock was the site of Wyoming's first Masonic Lodge meeting.[3]

1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate

2.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S

3.
Wyoming Highway 220
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Wyoming Highway 220 is the principal highway connecting the city of Casper to US 287/WYO789. WYO220 lies in northwestern Carbon and southern Natrona counties and along the famous Oregon Trail, Wyoming Highway 220 begins its western end in Carbon County at US 287/WYO789 at Muddy Gap Junction and from there heads northeast toward Casper. Nearing 20 miles, Highway 220 leaves Carbon County and enters Natrona County as it nears the north side of the Pathfinder Reservoir and the Pathfinder National Wildlife Refuge. WYO220 passes north of the reservoir, now traveling more easterly as it comes upon the place of Alcova. Also to the south lies Alcova Lake, past Alcova, WYO220 turns back northeast and begins to parallel the North Platte River and continue to until it reaches Casper. At 53.17 miles the northern terminus of Wyoming Highway 487 is intersected as 220 continues northeast, just before entering the Casper city limits, the two-lane highway becomes a divided multi-lane highway with two lanes for each direction of traffic, and becomes known as CY Avenue. Wyoming Highway 258 is intersected at just over 69 miles, past 258, the multi-lane division continues until just before the intersection of CY Avenue and Poplar Street. At this intersection, WYO220 follows Poplar Street north, the highway is maintained by WYDOT, except for portions of CY Avenue and Poplar Street in Casper, which are maintained locally. Between 1926 and 1938, what is now Wyoming Highway 220 was part of U. S. Route 87E, in 1938, U. S. 87E was renamed Wyoming Highway 220

4.
Natrona County, Wyoming
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Natrona County is a county located in the U. S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2010 census, the population was 75,450, Natrona County comprises the Casper, WY Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 2010, the center of population of Wyoming was located in Natrona County, the first Euro-American settlement occurred in the Casper area in the late 19th century. Natrona County was created by the legislature of the Wyoming Territory on March 9,1888, the land for Natrona County was ceded from Carbon County. Natrona County was named for the deposits of natron that are found in the area, in 1909, Natrona County gained land from Fremont County. The boundaries were adjusted slightly in 1911 and 1931, and at point the county gained its present outline. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 5,376 square miles. Highway 20 U. S. Highway 26 U. S. Highway 87 Wyoming Highway 220 As of the census of 2000, there were 66,533 persons,26,819 households, the population density was 12 people per square mile. There were 29,882 housing units at a density of 6 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 94. 15% White,0. 76% Black or African American,1. 03% Native American,0. 42% Asian,0. 04% Pacific Islander,1. 92% from other races, and 1. 68% from two or more races. 4. 90% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,24. 6% were of German,11. 6% English,11. 3% American and 11. 2% Irish ancestry. 27. 50% of all households were made up of individuals and 9. 40% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.42 and the average family size was 2.95. In the county, the population was distributed as follows,26. 00% under the age of 18,10. 10% from 18 to 24,27. 90% from 25 to 44,23. 30% from 45 to 64, the median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 97.70 males, for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.00 males. The median income for a household in the county was $36,619, males had a median income of $33,524 versus $21,374 for females. The per capita income for the county was $18,913, about 8. 70% of families and 11. 80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16. 20% of those under age 18 and 7. 20% of those age 65 or over. As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 75,450 people,30,616 households, the population density was 14.1 inhabitants per square mile. There were 33,807 housing units at a density of 6.3 per square mile

5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

7.
Granite
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Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be white, pink, or gray in color. The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the structure of such a holocrystalline rock. By definition, granite is a rock with at least 20% quartz. The term granitic means granite-like and is applied to granite and a group of igneous rocks with similar textures and slight variations in composition. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a texture is known as a granite porphyry. Granitoid is a general, descriptive field term for lighter-colored, coarse-grained igneous rocks, petrographic examination is required for identification of specific types of granitoids. The extrusive igneous rock equivalent of granite is rhyolite, Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use throughout human history, and more recently as a construction stone. The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity near STP is 3–6 •1019 Pa·s. The melting temperature of dry granite at ambient pressure is 1215–1260 °C, it is reduced in the presence of water. Granite has poor primary permeability, but strong secondary permeability, true granite according to modern petrologic convention contains both plagioclase and alkali feldspars. When a granitoid is devoid or nearly devoid of plagioclase, the rock is referred to as alkali feldspar granite, when a granitoid contains less than 10% orthoclase, it is called tonalite, pyroxene and amphibole are common in tonalite. A granite containing both muscovite and biotite micas is called a binary or two-mica granite, two-mica granites are typically high in potassium and low in plagioclase, and are usually S-type granites or A-type granites. A worldwide average of the composition of granite, by weight percent, based on 2485 analyses. Much of it was intruded during the Precambrian age, it is the most abundant basement rock that underlies the relatively thin veneer of the continents. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs, granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite often occurs as small, less than 100 km² stock masses

8.
Wyoming
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Wyoming /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous, Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, the state population was estimated at 586,107 in 2015, which is less than the population of 31 of the largest U. S. cities. The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were some of the inhabitants of the region. Southwestern Wyoming was included in the Spanish Empire and then Mexican territory until it was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The region acquired the name Wyoming when a bill was introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a government for the territory of Wyoming. The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, with the name ultimately being derived from the Munsee word xwé, wamənk, the mineral extraction industry—especially coal, oil, natural gas, and trona—along with the travel and tourism sector are the main drivers behind Wyomings economy. Agriculture has historically been an important component of the economy with the main commodities being livestock, hay, sugar beets, grain. The climate is generally semi-arid and continental, being drier and windier in comparison to the rest of the United States, except for the 1964 election, Wyoming has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s, with the Republican party winning every presidential election. Wyoming is one of three states to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, from the north border to the south border it is 276 miles, and from the east to the west border is 365 miles at its south end and 342 miles at the north end. The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, the state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet, to the Belle Fourche River valley in the states northeast corner, at 3,125 feet. In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River, in the north central are the Big Horn Mountains, in the northeast, the Black Hills, and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges. The Snowy Range in the central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies in both geology and appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000 ft tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains

9.
Oregon Trail
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The Oregon Trail is a 2, 170-mile historic east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the state of Kansas. The western half of the trail spanned most of the states of Idaho. The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and traders from about 1811 to 1840, by 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. From the early to mid-1830s the Oregon Trail and its offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers. The eastern half of the trail was used by travelers on the California Trail, Mormon Trail. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail. Although Lewis and William Clark found a path to the Pacific Ocean, it was not until 1859 that a direct and practicable route, the first land route across what is now the United States was mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. On the return trip in 1806 they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and they then traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the head of the Missouri River. This was ultimately a shorter and faster route than the one they followed west and this route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot Indians. They did show the way for the men, who within a decade would find a better way across. Founded by John Jacob Astor as a subsidiary of his American Fur Company in 1810, two movements of PFC employees were planned by Astor, one detachment to be sent to the Columbia River by the Tonquin and the other overland under an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt and his party were to find possible routes and trapping territories for further fur trading posts. Upon arriving at the river in March 1811, the Tonquin crew began construction of what became Fort Astoria, the ship left supplies and men to continue work on the station and ventured north up the coast to Clayoquot Sound for a trading expedition. While anchored there, Jonathan Thorn insulted an elder Tla-o-qui-aht who was elected by the natives to negotiate a mutually satisfactory price for animal pelts. Soon after the vessel was attacked and overwhelmed by the indigenous before being blown up, killing all the crew, from there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and then down to the Snake River into modern Idaho. They abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, after a few days travel they soon discovered that steep canyons, waterfalls and impassable rapids made travel by river impossible

10.
Mormon Trail
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The Mormon Trail or Mormon Pioneer Trail is the 1, 300-mile route that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled from 1846 to 1868. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. From Council Bluffs, Iowa to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, the trail follows much the same route as the Oregon Trail and the California Trail, the Mormon pioneer run began in 1846, when Young and his followers were driven from Nauvoo. After leaving, they aimed to establish a new home for the church in the Great Basin, along their way, some were assigned to establish settlements and to plant and harvest crops for later emigrants. In the spring of 1847, Young led the company to the Salt Lake Valley. During the first few years, the emigrants were mostly former occupants of Nauvoo who were following Young to Utah, later, the emigrants increasingly comprised converts from the British Isles and Europe. The trail was used for more than 20 years, until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, among the emigrants were the Mormon handcart pioneers of 1856–60. Two of the companies, led by James G. Willie and Edward Martin. However, the Saints were driven out of each of them in turn and this included the actions of Governor Lilburn Boggs, who issued Missouri Executive Order 44, which called for the extermination of all Mormons in Missouri. The Latter-day Saints were finally forced to abandon Nauvoo in 1846, Although the movement had split into several denominations after Smiths death in 1844, most members aligned themselves with Brigham Young and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Under Youngs leadership, about 14,000 Mormon citizens of Nauvoo set out to find a new home in the West, as the senior apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles after Joseph Smiths death, Brigham Young assumed responsibility of the leadership of the church. He would later be sustained as President of the Church and prophet, Young now had to lead the Saints into the far west, without knowing exactly where to go or where they would end up. He insisted the Mormons should settle in a no one else wanted. Young also organized a company to break trail to the Rocky Mountains, evaluate trail conditions, find sources of water. The Quincy Convention of October 1845 passed resolutions demanding that the Latter-day Saints withdraw from Nauvoo by May 1846, a few days later, the Carthage Convention called for establishment of a militia that would force them out if they failed to meet the May deadline. To try to meet this deadline and to get a start on the trek to the Great Basin. The departure from Nauvoo began on February 4,1846, under the leadership of Brigham Young and this early departure exposed them to the elements in the worst of winter. After crossing the Mississippi River, the journey across Iowa Territory followed primitive territorial roads, Young originally planned to lead an express company of about 300 men to the Great Basin during the summer of 1846

11.
California Trail
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The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 3,000 miles across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. In the present states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, by 1847, two former fur trading frontier forts marked trailheads for major alternative routes through Utah and Wyoming to Northern California. The first was Jim Bridgers Fort Bridger in present-day Wyoming on the Green River, from Salt Lake the Salt Lake Cutoff went north and west of the Great Salt Lake and rejoined the California Trail in the City of Rocks in present-day Idaho. From Fort Hall the Oregon and California trails went about 50 miles southwest along the Snake River Valley to another parting of the trail junction at the junction of the Raft. The California Trail from the junction followed the Raft River to the City of Rocks in Idaho near the present Nevada-Idaho-Utah tripoint, the Salt Lake and Fort Hall routes were about the same length, about 190 miles. From the City of Rocks the trail went into the present state of Utah following the South Fork of the Junction Creek. By following the crooked, meandering Humboldt River Valley west across the arid Great Basin, emigrants were able to get the water, grass, the water turned increasingly alkaline as they progressed down the Humboldt, and there were almost no trees. Firewood usually consisted of broken brush, and the grass was sparse, few travelers liked the Humboldt River Valley passage. Humboldt is not good for man nor beast, an alternative route across the present states of Utah and Nevada that bypassed both Fort Hall and the Humboldt River trails was developed in 1859. In addition to immigrants and migrants from the East, after 1859 the Pony Express, Overland stages, the main routes initially were the Truckee Trail to the Sacramento Valley and after about 1849 the Carson Trail route to the American River and the Placerville, California gold digging region. Starting about 1859 the Johnson Cutoff and the Henness Pass Route across the Sierras were greatly improved and developed and these main roads across the Sierras were both toll roads so there were funds to pay for maintenance and upkeep on the roads. The Johnson Cutoff, from Placerville to Carson City along todays U. S. Route 50 in California, was used by the Pony Express year-round and in the summer by the stage lines. It was the overland route from the East to California that could be kept partially open for at least horse traffic in the winter. After about 1848 the most popular route was the Carson Route which, while rugged, was easier than most others. The trail was used in the summers until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 by the Union Pacific. Trail traffic rapidly fell off as the trip was much quicker and easier by train—about seven days. The economy class fare across the western United States of about $69 was affordable by most California-bound travelers, the trail was used by about 2,700 settlers from 1846 up to 1849. These settlers were instrumental in helping convert California to a U. S. possession, fremonts California Battalion assisted the Pacific Squadrons sailors and marines in 1846 and 1847 in conquering California in the Mexican–American War

12.
Pierre-Jean De Smet
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His extensive travels as a missionary were said to total 180,000 miles. He was known as the Friend of Sitting Bull, because he persuaded the Sioux war chief to participate in negotiations with the United States government for the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, part of the complex survives today as Sacred Heart Church in Bowie. De Smet moved west to St. Louis to complete his studies in 1823. De Smet and five other Belgian novices, led by Charles Van Quickenborne, moved to Florissant, Missouri, several academic institutions were immediately founded, among which the St. Regis Seminary where De Smet had his first contacts with indigenous boys. After further studies, he was ordained priest on 23 September 1827, until 1830, he learned about Indian customs and languages as a prefect at the seminary. In 1833 he had to return to Belgium due to health problems and it was 1837 before he could return to Missouri. In 1838 and 1839, De Smet helped to establish St. Josephs Mission in what is now Council Bluffs, taking over the abandoned Council Bluffs Blockhouse military fort, De Smet worked primarily with a Potawatomi band led by Billy Caldwell, also known as Sauganash. De Smet was appalled by the murders and brutality resulting from the whiskey trade, during this time, he also assisted and supported Joseph Nicollet’s efforts at mapping the Upper Midwest. De Smet used newly acquired mapping skills to produce the first detailed map of the Missouri River valley system and his map shows the locations of Indian villages and other cultural features, including the wreck of the Steamboat Pirate. Louis to request black-robes to be sent among them to baptize their children, sick, the first three delegations failed due to disease and massacre, while passing through the Territory of the Sioux, but the fourth was successful. Fr. de Smet was then assigned to accompany the messengers back to the Indian territory, to ascertain the nation and establish a mission among them. On 5 July 1840, Father De Smet offered the first Holy Mass in Wyoming, a mile east of Daniel, a monument to the event stands on its site. In 1841, St. Marys Mission was founded among the Salish by De Smet and he noted the proselytising of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions under Henry H. Spalding based at Lapwai had made neighboring Nimíipuu nation wary of Catholicism. One particular band of Nimíipuu was convinced to reside at the mission for a period of two months, their time there ending in everyone receiving baptism. Near the end of his time with the Salish, De Smet sent out an appeal to the United States public for financial aid to bolster his efforts. He viewed their cultural habit of a living to make it impossible to do any solid. He forwarded a plan that the Salish be assembled in villages—must be taught the art of agriculture, consequently must be supplied with implements, with cattle, with seed. One of De Smets longest explorations began in August 1845 in the occupied region west of the Rockies, known to Americans as Oregon Country

13.
Granite Mountains (Wyoming)
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The Granite Mountains are a short subrange of the Rocky Mountains in central Wyoming of the United States. The range runs approximately 100 mi E-W along the side of the Shoshone Basin. The highest point is McIntosh Peak at 8,058 feet, independence Rock is at the east end of the range. The region is rich in uranium and other mineral deposits, list of mountain ranges in Wyoming Granite Mountains

14.
Enchanted Rock
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Enchanted Rock is an enormous pink granite pluton batholith located in the Llano Uplift approximately 17 miles north of Fredericksburg, Texas and 24 miles south of Llano, Texas, United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, which includes Enchanted Rock and surrounding land, Enchanted Rock covers approximately 640 acres and rises approximately 425 feet above the surrounding terrain to elevation of 1,825 feet above sea level. It is the largest such pink granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, a part of the Texas state park system, includes 1,644 acres. Designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1936, the prominent granite dome is visible for many miles in the surrounding basin of the Llano Uplift. The weathered dome, standing above the plain is known to geologists as a monadnock. Archaeological evidence indicates human visitation at the going back at least 11,000 years. According to the book The Enchanted Rock published in 1999 by Ira Kennedy These hunter-gatherers had flint-tipped spears, fire, with these resources, some twelve thousand years ago, the first Texans became the wellspring of Plains Indian culture. On the basis of evidence, human habitation at Enchanted Rock can be traced back at least 10,000 years. Paleo-Indian projectile points, or arrowheads, 11–12,000 years old have been found in the upstream and downstream from The Rock. The oldest authenticated projectile point found within the present day park is a Plainview point type, the rock has been the subject of numerous geological surveys and paintings. Folklore of local Tonkawa, Apache and Comanche tribes ascribes magical and spiritual powers to the rock, while attempting to hide from Anglo settlers in the area, the natives would hide on the top two tiers of the rock, where they were invisible from the ground below. The first European to visit the area was probably Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1536, the Tonkawa, who inhabited the area in the 16th century, believed that ghost fires flickered at the top of the dome. In particular they heard unexplained creaking and groaning, which attribute to the rocks night-time contraction after being heated by the sun during the day. The name Enchanted Rock derives from Spanish and Anglo-Texan interpretations of such legends and related folklore, a plaque formerly embedded in Enchanted Rock near the top, but now removed to a kiosk below, reads, From its summit in 1841, Captain John C. Hays, while surrounded by Comanche Indians who cut him off from his ranging company repulsed the whole band, vernal pools, ecologically threatened depressions of flora and fauna adapted to harsh environments, contain fragile invertebrate fairy shrimp. Other wildlife includes bats, ringtails, squirrels, and fox, a wide variety of lizards, including the Texas horned lizard also make the Enchanted Rock area their home. Park activities include caving, hiking, primitive camping, rock climbing and picnicking. The Summit Trail is the most popular hiking path, the Granite Gripper is an annual rock climbing competition that acts as a fund raiser for park conservation through the Friends of Enchanted Rock

15.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south

16.
Uluru
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It lies 335 km south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs,450 km by road. Uluru is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara Anangu, the Aboriginal people of the area, the area around the formation is home to an abundance of springs, waterholes, rock caves and ancient paintings. Uluru is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, also known as the Olgas, are the two major features of the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. The local Anangu, the Pitjantjatjara people, call the landmark Uluṟu and this word is a proper noun, with no further particular meaning in the Pitjantjatjara dialect, although it is used as a local family name by the senior Traditional Owners of Uluru. On 19 July 1873, the surveyor William Gosse sighted the landmark and named it Ayers Rock in honour of the then Chief Secretary of South Australia, since then, both names have been used. In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official names that consist of both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name, on 15 December 1993, it was renamed Ayers Rock / Uluru and became the first official dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the names was officially reversed to Uluru / Ayers Rock on 6 November 2002 following a request from the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs. Uluru is one of Australias most recognisable natural landmarks, the sandstone formation stands 348 m high, rising 863 m above sea level with most of its bulk lying underground, and has a total circumference of 9.4 km. Uluru is notable for appearing to change colour at different times of the day and year, most notably when it glows red at dawn, Kata Tjuta, also called Mount Olga or the Olgas, lies 25 km west of Uluru. Special viewing areas with access and parking have been constructed to give tourists the best views of both sites at dawn and dusk. Uluru is an inselberg, literally island mountain, an inselberg is a prominent isolated residual knob or hill that rises abruptly from and is surrounded by extensive and relatively flat erosion lowlands in a hot, dry region. Uluru is also referred to as a monolith, although this is a somewhat ambiguous term that is generally avoided by geologists. The remarkable feature of Uluru is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and these characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded. Uluru is dominantly composed of coarse-grained arkose and some conglomerate, the grains are typically 2–4 millimetres in diameter, and are angular to subangular, the finer sandstone is well sorted, with sorting decreasing with increasing grain size. The rock fragments include subrounded basalt, invariably replaced to various degrees by chlorite and epidote, the minerals present suggest derivation from a predominantly granite source, similar to the Musgrave Block exposed to the south. When relatively fresh, the rock has a colour. The strata at Uluru are nearly vertical, dipping to the south west at 85°, the strata dip below the surrounding plain and no doubt extend well beyond Uluru in the subsurface, but the extent is not known. The similar mineral composition of the Mutitjulu Arkose and the ranges to the south is now explained

17.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia

18.
Plateau
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Plateaus can be formed by a number of processes, including upwelling of volcanic magma, extrusion of lava, and erosion by water and glaciers. Magma rises from the mantle, causing the ground to swell upward, in way, large, flat areas of rock are uplifted. Plateaus can also be built up by lava spreading outward from cracks, plateaus can also be formed by the erosional processes of glaciers on mountain ranges, leaving them sitting between the mountain ranges. Water can also erode mountains and other landforms down into plateaus, volcanic plateaus are produced by volcanic activity. The Columbia Plateau in the northwestern United States is an example, dissected plateaus are highly eroded plateaus cut by rivers and broken by deep narrow valleys. Plateaus are classified according to their surrounding environment, intermontane plateaus are the highest in the world, bordered by mountains. The Tibetan Plateau is one such plateau, Piedmont plateaus are bordered on one side by mountains and on the other by a plain or a sea. The Piedmont Plateau of the Eastern United States between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Coastal Plain is an example, continental plateaus are bordered on all sides by plains or oceans, forming away from the mountains. The Tibetan plateau covers approximately 2,500,000 km2, the plateau is sufficiently high enough to reverse the Hadley cell convection cycles and to drive the monsoons of India towards the south. The second-highest plateau is the Deosai Plateau of the Deosai National Park at an elevation of 4,114 m. It is located in the Astore and Skardu districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, Deosai means the land of giants. The park protects an area of 3,000 km2 and it is known for its rich flora and fauna of the Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe ecoregion. In spring it is covered by sweeps of wildflowers and a variety of butterflies. The highest point in Deosai is Deosai Lake, or Sheosar Lake from the Shina language meaning Blind lake near the Chilim Valley. The lake lies at an elevation of 4,142 m, one of the highest lakes in the world, and is 2.3 km long,1.8 km wide, and 40 m deep on average. Some other major plateaus in Asia are, Armenian Highlands, Iranian plateau, Anatolian Plateau, Mongolian Plateau, and the Deccan Plateau. This polar ice cap is so massive that the echolocation sound measurements of ice thickness have shown that parts of the Antarctic dry land surface have been pressed below sea level. Thus, if that same ice cap were removed, the large areas of the frozen white continent would be flooded by the surrounding Antarctic Ocean or Southern Ocean

19.
Sweetwater River (Wyoming)
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The Sweetwater River is a 238-mile long tributary of the North Platte River, in the U. S. state of Wyoming. As a part of the Mississippi River system, its waters reach the Gulf of Mexico. The Sweetwater rises in southwestern Fremont County, at the divide near South Pass Wyoming. These trappers and traders established a path for their pack trains along the Sweetwater. In fall of 1823, trappers and fur traders Jedediah Smith and they were looking for a safe location to spend the winter. Smith reasoned since the Sweetwater flowed east it must eventually run into the Missouri River, upon arriving back in a settled area on the Missouri River they bought pack horses and retrieved their furs. They had re-discovered the route that Robert Stuart of the Astor Expedition had taken in 1813—eleven years before, Thomas Fitzpatrick was often hired as a trail guide when the fur trade almost ceased in 1840. Jedediah Smith was killed by Indians about 1831, by 1843 the Sweetwater River valley was a regular wagon trail providing the water, grass and fuel needed on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails across Wyoming. South Pass was the easiest pass across the Atlantic and Pacific drainages and these wagon trails crossed the meandering Sweetwater River about nine times on their about 10 to 20 day trips along the Sweetwater River before they reached South Pass. At a time such a meeting was incredibly unlikely, the coincidence was so fortuitous as to be chronicled in the fraternitys history

20.
Casper, Wyoming
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Casper is a city in and the county seat of Natrona County, Wyoming, United States. Casper is the second-largest city in Wyoming, according to the 2010 census, only Cheyenne, the state capital, is larger. Casper is nicknamed The Oil City and has a history of oil boomtown and cowboy culture. In 2010, Casper was named the highest-ranked family-friendly small city in the West, Casper is located in east-central Wyoming at the foot of Casper Mountain, the north end of the Laramie Mountain Range, along the North Platte River. The city was established east of the site of Fort Caspar. The area was the location of several ferries that offered passage across the North Platte River in the early 1840s, in 1859, Louis Guinard built a bridge and trading post near the original ferry locations. The government soon posted a garrison nearby to protect telegraph. It was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William O. Collins, American Indian attacks increased after the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864, bringing more troops to the post, which was by now called Platte Bridge Station. In July 1865, Lieutenant Caspar Collins was killed near the post by a group of Indian warriors, three months later the garrison was renamed Fort Caspar after Lieutenant Collins. In 1867, the troops were ordered to abandon Fort Caspar in favor of Fort Fetterman downstream on the North Platte along the Bozeman Trail, the town of Casper itself was founded well after the fort had been closed. The city was founded by developers as a stopping point during the expansion of the Wyoming Central Railway, it was an early commercial rival to Bessemer and Douglas. The lack of a railhead doomed Bessemer in favor of Casper, Douglas, also a railhead, survives to the present day. The presence of a railhead made Casper the starting off point for the invaders in the Johnson County War, the special chartered train carrying the men up from Texas stopped at Casper. The reason why the town is named Casper, instead of Caspar honoring the memory of Fort Caspar, Interstate 25, which approaches Casper from the north and east, is the main avenue of transportation to and from the city. The towns immediately adjacent to Casper are Mills, Evansville, unincorporated areas include Allendale, Dempsey Acres, Red Buttes, Indian Springs, and several others. Casper is located at 42°50′5″N 106°19′30″W and it sits at an average elevation of about 5,200 feet. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 27.24 square miles. Casper, as with most of the rest of Wyoming, has a climate, with long, cold, but dry winters, hot but generally dry summers, mild springs

21.
Westward Expansion Trails
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In the American Old West, trails were used by immigrants from the eastern United States, between 1830 and 1870. These colonists began to settle various regions of North America west of the Interior Plains, settlers following these Westward ways were spurred by various motives, among them including persecuted Mormons seeking freedom of religion. After the end of the Mexican-American War in 1849, there were many new enticing American conquests, legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and critical events like the California Gold Rush further incited colonists to travel overland west. There were two major networks, one based typically out of Missouri and the other out of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Three of the Missouri-based routes were known as the Emigrant Trails, the Oregon, Mormon. The trip was arduous, fraught with risks from infectious diseases, dehydration, injury, malnutrition and these trail networks have become embedded in the folklore of the United States as one of the significant influences that have shaped the content and character of the nation. The remains of many trail ruts can be observed in scattered locations throughout arid parts of the American West, travelers may loosely follow various routes of the trail network on modern highways through the use of byway signs across the western states. Travelers across what became the Western United States in the 19th century had the choice of several routes, some of the earliest were those of the Mexicans in the southwest. American trade with Northern Mexico created the Santa Fe Trail between St. Louis and Santa Fe following an 18th-century route pioneered by the Spanish Empire. From Santa Fe, American traders followed the old El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro southward to Chihuahua by way of El Paso del Norte. Branching off from that route, some settlers southwestward on the California Trail from Fort Hall, Oregon Territory to Sutters Fort, also branching off to the south was the Mormon Trail from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. During the twenty-five years 1841–1866,250,000 to 650,000 people pulled up stakes, about one-third immigrated to Oregon, one-third to California and one-third to Utah, Colorado, and Montana. The trails from these cities converged in the mostly empty flatlands of central Nebraska near present-day Kearney, in the vicinity of Fort Kearney. The most common vehicle for Oregon and California-bound settlers was a wagon pulled by a team of oxen or mules in the dry semi-arid terrain common to the high plains in the heat of summer. In later years, following the advice of Brigham Young, many Mormon emigrants made the crossing to Utah with handcarts, in many treeless areas, buffalo chips were the most common source of fuel. It crossed what was then the northernmost part of Mexico until the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, during the California Gold Rush the routes to California used were increased by the Siskiyou Trail from Oregon. In the south the forty-niners used the Cooke Wagon Road, until some found a short cut, in 1856, as part of an improvement of the route as a military road, a cutoff was built to Cookes Spring from Mesilla. From Cookes Spring the road ran to the Yuma Crossing into California and this route became the Southern Emigrant Trail

22.
Oregon
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Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Oregon is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Washington, on the south by California, on the east by Idaho, the Columbia River delineates much of Oregons northern boundary, and the Snake River delineates much of the eastern boundary. The parallel 42° north delineates the boundary with California and Nevada. Oregon was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Western traders, explorers. An autonomous government was formed in the Oregon Country in 1843 before the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14,1859. Today, at 98,000 square miles, Oregon is the ninth largest and, with a population of 4 million, the capital of Oregon is Salem, the second most populous of its cities, with 164,549 residents. Portland is Oregons most populous city, with 632,309 residents, Portlands metro population of 2,389,228 ranks the 23rd largest metro in the nation. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon is the states most densely populated area, the tall conifers, mainly Douglas fir, along Oregons rainy west coast contrast with the lighter-timbered and fire-prone pine and juniper forests covering portions to the east. Abundant alders in the west fix nitrogen for the conifers, stretching east from central Oregon are semi-arid shrublands, prairies, deserts, steppes, and meadows. At 11,249 feet, Mount Hood is the states highest point, Oregons only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. The state is home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae. Because of its landscapes and waterways, Oregons economy is largely powered by various forms of agriculture, fishing. It is also the top timber-producer of the lower 48 states, Technology is another one of the states major economic forces, which began in the 1970s with the establishment of the Silicon Forest and the expansion of Tektronix and Intel. Sportswear company Nike, Inc. headquartered in Beaverton, is the states largest public corporation with a revenue of $30.6 billion. The earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins and this chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. There are also two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name Oregano which grows in the part of the region. Another early use of the name, spelled Ouragon, was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the term referred to the then-mythical River of the West. By 1778 the spelling had shifted to Oregon, in his 1765 petition, Rogers wrote, The rout. is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon

23.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565

24.
Missouri River
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The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the fourth longest river system. For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries as a source of sustenance and transportation. More than ten major groups of Native Americans populated the watershed, most leading a nomadic lifestyle, the Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century. The growth of the fur trade in the early 1800s laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region, pioneers headed west en masse beginning in the 1830s, first by covered wagon, then by the growing numbers of steamboats entering service on the river. Former Native American lands in the watershed were taken over by settlers, leading to some of the most longstanding, during the 20th century, the Missouri River basin was extensively developed for irrigation, flood control and the generation of hydroelectric power. Fifteen dams impound the main stem of the river, with more on tributaries. Meanders have been cut and the river channelized to improve navigation, from the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. The longest begins near Browers Spring,9,100 feet above sea level, on the southeastern slopes of Mount Jefferson in the Centennial Mountains. Flowing west then north, it runs first in Hell Roaring Creek, then west into the Red Rock, swings northeast to become the Beaverhead and these two streams then flow north and northwest into Montana. The Missouri River officially starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison in Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks, Montana, the Missouri then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains. Issuing from the mountains near Cascade, the flows northeast to the city of Great Falls, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Missouri. Farther on, the passes through the Fort Peck Dam, and immediately downstream. At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river, the Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir formed by Garrison Dam. Below the dam the Missouri receives the Knife River from the west and flows south to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota and it slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota, the Missouri makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving the Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest

25.
Independence Day (United States)
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It declared that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no longer part of the British Empire. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States, Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it two days later on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail, The second day of July,1776, I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, adamss prediction was off by two days. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2,1776, although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Monroe, another Founding Father who was elected as President, also died on July 4,1831. He was the third President in a row who died on the anniversary of independence, calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4,1872, so far he is the only U. S. President to have been born on Independence Day. In 1777 thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, ships in port were decked with red, white, and blue bunting. In 1778, from his headquarters at Ross Hall, near New Brunswick, New Jersey, General George Washington marked July 4 with a ration of rum for his soldiers. Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans in Paris, in 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5, in 1781 the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration. In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held a celebration of July 4 with a music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled The Psalm of Joy and this is recognized as the first recorded celebration and is still celebrated there today. In 1870 the U. S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees, in 1938 Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday. Independence Day is a holiday marked by patriotic displays. Similar to other summer-themed events, Independence Day celebrations often take place outdoors, Independence Day is a federal holiday, so all non-essential federal institutions are closed on that day. Many politicians make it a point on day to appear at a public event to praise the nations heritage, laws, history, society. Families often celebrate Independence Day by hosting or attending a picnic or barbecue, many take advantage of the day off and, in some years, decorations are generally colored red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag

26.
Episcopal Church (United States)
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The Episcopal Church is the United States-based member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The current presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, in 2014, the Episcopal Church had 1,956,042 baptized members. In 2011, it was the nations 14th largest denomination, in 2015, Pew Research estimated that 1.2 percent of the adult population in the United States, or 3 million people, self-identify as mainline Episcopalians/Anglicans. The Episcopal Church describes itself as Protestant, yet Catholic, the Episcopal Church is an apostolic church, tracing its bishops back to the apostles via holy orders. The Book of Common Prayer, a collection of traditional rites, blessings, liturgies, the Episcopal Church was active in the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the church has pursued a more liberal course. It has opposed the death penalty and supported the civil rights movement, some of its leaders and priests are known for marching with influential civil rights demonstrators such as Martin Luther King Jr. The Church calls for the legal equality of gay and lesbian people. Due to the process of editing or making additions to the Prayer Book, the BCP still describes marriage as being the union of a man. The Episcopal Church ordains women and LGBT people to the priesthood, the diaconate, in 2003, Gene Robinson was the first non-celibate openly gay person ordained as a bishop in documented Christian history. There are two names of the Episcopal Church specified in its constitution, The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The latter is the commonly used name. In other languages, an equivalent is used, until 1964, the only official name in use was The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In the 19th century, High Church members advocated changing the name and they were opposed by the churchs evangelical wing, which felt that the Protestant Episcopal label accurately reflected the Reformed character of Anglicanism. After 1877, alternative names were proposed and rejected by the General Convention. A commonly proposed alternative was the American Catholic Church, by the 1960s, opposition to dropping the word Protestant had largely subsided. The 66th General Convention voted in 1979 to use the name The Episcopal Church in the Oath of Conformity of the Declaration for Ordination, the evolution of the name can be seen in the churchs Book of Common Prayer. The alternate name The Episcopal Church in the United States of America has never been a name of the church but is commonly seen in English

27.
Masonic lodge
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A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly, but erroneously, used as a term for a building in such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered by a Grand Lodge, a Freemason is generally entitled to visit any Lodge in any jurisdiction in amity with his own. In some jurisdictions this privilege is restricted to Master Masons and he is first usually required to check, and certify, the regularity of the relationship of the Lodge – and be able to satisfy that Lodge of his regularity of membership. Freemasons gather together as a Lodge to work the three basic Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason, technically, Freemasons meet as a lodge not in a lodge. In this context, the lodge refers to a local chapter of Freemasons. However, the term is misused to refer to the buildings or rooms that Masons meet in. Masonic premises are also referred to as temples. In many countries Masonic centre or Masonic hall has now replaced these terms to avoid arousing prejudice, several different lodges, or other Masonic organisations, often use the same premises at different times. Blue lodges, craft lodges or ancient craft lodges refer to the lodges that work the first three Masonic degrees, rather than the appendant Masonic orders such as York Rite and Scottish Rite, the term craft lodge is used in Great Britain. The blue lodge is said to refer to the colour of regalia in lodges derived from English or Irish Freemasonry. Although the term was originally frowned upon, it has gained widespread, research lodges have the purpose of furthering Masonic scholarship. Quatuor Coronati Lodge is an example of a lodge, it has a strictly limited membership. Many jurisdictions have well-established research lodges, which usually meet less frequently than blue lodges, in Great Britain, a lodge of instruction may be associated with a Lodge, but is not constituted separately. In Great Britain, the mother lodge is used to identify the particular Lodge where the individual was first made a Mason. Provincial Grand Lodges exercise an intermediate authority, and also appoint Provincial Grand Officers, in any case, Grand Lodges have limited jurisdiction over their member Lodges, and where there is no prescribed ritual Lodges may thus have considerable freedom of practice. Despite these minor differences, fraternal relations exist between Lodges of corresponding degrees under different Grand Lodges. Generally, to be accepted for initiation as a regular Freemason, believe in some kind of Supreme Being

28.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service

29.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker

30.
Nauvoo, Illinois
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Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States, on the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa. The population of Nauvoo was 1,149 at the 2010 census, the city and its immediate surrounding area are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Nauvoo Historic District. The area of Nauvoo was first called Quashquema, named in honor of the Native American chief who headed a Sauk, by 1827, white settlers had built cabins in the area. By 1829 this area of Hancock County had grown sufficiently so that a post office was needed and in 1832 the town, however, the honor was awarded to a nearby city, Carthage. In 1834 the name Venus was changed to Commerce because the settlers felt that the new name better suited their plans, the name Nauvoo is derived from the traditional Hebrew language with an anglicized spelling. The word comes from Isaiah 52,7, “How beautiful upon the mountains. ”It is notable that “by 1844 Nauvoos population had swollen to 12,000, after Joseph Smiths death in 1844, continuing violence from surrounding non-Mormons forced most Latter-Day Saints to leave Nauvoo. Most of these refugees, led by Brigham Young, eventually emigrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley, in 1849, Icarians moved to the Nauvoo area to implement a utopian socialist commune based on the ideals of French philosopher Étienne Cabet. At its peak the colony numbered over 500 members, but Cabets death in 1856 caused some members to leave this parent colony, in the early and mid 20th century Nauvoo was primarily a Roman Catholic town, and the majority of the population today is Catholic. Guided tours are available at the churchs Joseph Smith Historic Site, located at the end of the town. The LDS Church owns most of the historic sites in Nauvoo, including the homes of Brigham Young. Kimball, and other members of the church, as well as other significant buildings. Most of these sites are open to the public, with demonstrations and displays and these tours are free, as are the stage and riverside theatrical productions. There is a visitors center complete with two theaters and a relief map of 1846 Nauvoo. The creation of Nauvoo as a tourism destination was largely a result of the work of J. LeRoy Kimball. Kimball was a descendent of early Mormon leader Heber C, Kimball, and bought his ancestors home in 1954 with the intention of restoring it. He was the president of Nauvoo Restoration, Inc. from 1962 to 1986, an LDS congregation was established in Nauvoo in 1956, from its inception consisting largely of elderly LDS couples serving as missionaries and historical guides. The City of Joseph Pageant, a musical produced by the LDS Church. An LDS stake was organized with headquarters at Nauvoo in 1979, in addition to the many homes that had been restored, the Relief Society Memorial Garden was dedicated in 1978, featuring statues designed by Dennis Smith and Florence Hansen

31.
Chimney Rock National Historic Site
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Chimney Rock is a prominent geological rock formation in Morrill County in western Nebraska. Rising nearly 300 feet above the surrounding North Platte River valley, the formation served as a landmark along the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, and the Mormon Trail during the mid-19th century. The trails ran along the side of the rock, which remains a visible landmark for modern travelers along U. S. Route 26. Prior to exploration and settlement by European immigrants, the Native Americans of the area—mainly the Lakota Sioux—would refer to this formation by a term which meant elk penis. The first non-natives to see the pillar were probably the Astorians of Robert Stuart in their journey from the Pacific Ocean in 1813. Chimney Rock was recorded in many journals after the Stuart expedition, the name Chimney Rock probably originated from early fur traders. The first recorded mention of Chimney Rock was in 1827 by Joshua Pilcher, Pilcher had journeyed up the Platte River valley to the Salt Lake rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain fur trappers. A small town named Chimney Rock once stood near the base of the formation, a post office was established at the town of Chimney Rock in 1913, and remained in operation until 1922. The pillar consists primarily of Brule clay interlayered with volcanic ash, the harder sandstone layers near the top have protected the pillar since it broke away from the retreating cliff line to the south. Chimney Rock rises approximately 286 feet above its surroundings, Chimney Rock and Independence Rock further west in Wyoming are two of the prominent features along the Oregon Trail. Chimney Rock is located 20 miles southeast of Scotts Bluff National Monument, the Ethel and Christopher J. Abbot Visitor Center features museum exhibits and a video about pioneers and the migrations in the West, as well as a gift shop. On March 1,2006, the Nebraska State Quarter was released, the quarter features a covered wagon headed west past Chimney Rock, commemorating Nebraskas role in westward migration

32.
Courthouse and Jail Rocks
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Courthouse and Jail Rocks are two rock formations located near Bridgeport in the Nebraska Panhandle. The Oregon-California Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express Trail, the pair of rock formations served as a landmark along the trails for many pioneers traveling west in the 19th century. Many travelers would stray as much as five miles from the Oregon Trail just to get a glimpse of the rocks, hundreds of westward-bound emigrants mentioned Courthouse Rock in their travel logs and journals. The name Courthouse was first used in 1837, the voyagers have called it the Courthouse, but it looks infinitely more like the Capitol. Courthouse and Jail Rocks, which rise 400 feet above the North Platte Valley, are composed of Brule clay, Gering sandstone, the rock formations are listed in the National Register of Historic Places and in the Nebraska Natural Areas Register. Robert Stuart first recorded Court House and Jail House Rock in 1812, by 1849 and the California Gold Rush, the promontories had been described as Castles, a Church, and Coffins. The name Court House and Jail House became the most common, Pumpkin Creek forms an oxbow near the buttes where a meadow with trees make an suitable campsite. There is evidence that fur trappers, Indians, gold seekers on their way to California and the Black Hills, further to the southeast on Pumpkin Creek, is the site of a Pony Express Station. The Pony Express and the military used a route on the west side as did the Sidney-Black Hills Trail. The buttes are the first promontories along the trail coming from the east, even for those emigrants who used the Julesburg, Colorado crossing of the South Platte River, the buttes are mentioned in their diaries. Court House and Jail House Rocks are remnants of an ancient plateau and they are remnants of the nearby hills that have become separated over time. At an elevation of 4,050 feet above sea level they rise 240 feet above Pumpkin Creek, Courthouse and Jail Rocks, which rise 400 feet above the North Platte Valley, are composed of Brule clay, Gering sandstone and volcanic ash. The rock formations are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, landmarks of the Nebraska Territory Chimney Rock National Historic Site

33.
Scotts Bluff National Monument
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Scotts Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska includes an important 19th-century landmark on the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail. The monument is composed of five rock formations named Crown Rock, Dome Rock, Eagle Rock, Saddle Rock, Scotts Bluff County and the city of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, were named after the landmark. The collection of bluffs was first charted by non-native people in 1812 by the Astorian Expedition of fur traders traveling along the river. The expedition party noted the bluffs as the first large rock formations along the river where the Great Plains started giving way to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and their findings were not widely communicated because of the War of 1812. In 1823 explorers rediscovered the route to the Rocky Mountains, european Americans named the most prominent bluff after Hiram Scott, a fur trader who died in 1828 near the bluff. The local Native Americans had called it Me-a-pa-te, the hill that is hard to go around, fur traders, missionaries, and military expeditions began regular trips past Scotts Bluff during the 1830s. Beginning in 1841, multitudes of settlers passed by Scotts Bluff on their way west on the Emigrant Trail to Oregon, wagon trains used the bluff as a major landmark for navigation. The trail passed through Mitchell Pass, a gap in the bluffs flanked by two large cliffs, although the route through Mitchell Pass was tortuous and hazardous, many emigrants preferred this route to following the North Platte river bottom on the north side of the bluff. Passage through Mitchell Pass became a significant milestone for many trains on their way westward. In one of its first engineering deployments, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers built a road through Mitchell Pass in the early 1850s. Use of the Emigrant Trail tapered off in 1869 after the trail was superseded by the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The town of Gering, Nebraska, was founded near the base of the bluff in 1887, separated by the river, the two cities have since grown together and now form the 6th-largest urban area in Nebraska. Developers built various trails up the bluff over the years, in the early 20th century, the National Park Service constructed a safer, more modern trail for improved access. There has always been some disagreement as to the spelling of this geomorphic feature. For example, an 1843 map titled Map of an Exploratory Expedition to the Mountains in 1842 by John C, frémont labeled the feature Scotts Bluff. Another early military map of Nebraska and the Dakotas published in 1875 by G. K, warren dropped the apostrophe and labeled the feature simply as Scotts Bluff. There are numerous examples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in which the name has been spelled with or without an apostrophe. In a final decision by the United States Board on Geographical Names rendered on June 11,1941, the nearby town of Scottsbluff is spelled as one word

34.
Emigrant Trail in Wyoming
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The path followed by the Oregon Trail, California Trail and Mormon Trail spans 400 miles through the U. S. state of Wyoming. The trail entered from Nebraska on the border of the state near the present day town of Torrington and exited on the western border near the towns of Cokeville. An estimated 350,000 to 400,000 settlers traveled on the trail through Wyoming between 1841 and 1868, all three trails follow the same path through most of the state. The Mormon Trail splits at Fort Bridger and enters Utah, while the Oregon, in the eastern plains, the Emigrant Trail follows the North Platte River into Wyoming. The trail follows the river upstream to Fort Laramie, a prominent military, after crossing, trains on the main trail to the south of the river had to cross the North Platte again 100 miles upstream. In 1850 several wagon trains successfully blazed a path along the side of the river. This new route, which reduced the risk and expense of crossing the river twice, was preferred for all subsequent traffic on the side of the river. The northern route is sometimes called Childs Route after Andrew Child who describe it in a book published in 1852. Above Fort Laramie, Childs Route follows the North Platte River through the present day town of Douglas and this is the point at which the Bozeman Trail turned north to the gold fields of Montana in the 1860s. The southern route also follows the river along the edge of the Laramie Mountains to an area near the current towns of Casper, in 1847, during the first Mormon emigration, Brigham Young established a ferry near present-day Casper known as Mormon Ferry. The next year the ferry was moved a few miles downriver, the ferry was free for Latter Day Saints, but charged a toll for other users. The ferry was manned by groups of Mormons every summer from 1848 until 1852, in 1853 John Baptiste Richard built a toll bridge near the ferry site, which would eventually put all ferries on the North Platte out of business. In 1859, Louis Guinard built the Platte Bridge near the site of the original Mormon Ferry, Guinard also built a trading post at one end of the bridge which eventually became Fort Caspar. Famous landmarks along the route included Ayres Natural Bridge and Register Cliff. Continuing upstream from Casper, the North Platte bends to the south, the original trail proceeded several miles along the river to Red Buttes, where a bend in the river formed a natural amphitheater dominated by red cliffs on the hill above. The river was easier to ford here for those who were unwilling or unable to pay to cross at one of the ferries downstream and this was the last good camp spot before leaving the river and entering the waterless stretch between the North Platte and the Sweetwater River. From here the settlers entered a difficult portion called Rock Avenue which moved from spring to spring across mostly alkaline soil, upon arrival in the Sweetwater valley, the trail encounters one of the most important landmarks on the trail, Independence Rock. Independence Rock was named because settlers tried to reach it by July 4 in order to ensure that they will be at their destinations in California or Oregon before the winter snows come

35.
Devil's Gate (Wyoming)
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Devils Gate or Devils Gate is a natural rock formation, a gorge on the Sweetwater River in Wyoming a few miles southwest of Independence Rock. Although the actual route of travel did not pass through the cleft, the site was a major landmark on the Oregon and Mormon trails. The earliest surviving photograph of this landmark was made in 1858 by Samuel C, mills, a photographer with the Captain Simpson Expedition. The canyon is accessible today from Wyoming Highway 220 between Casper and Muddy Gap, near the Mormon Handcart Historic Site and Martins Cove, Devils Gate is a remarkable example of superposed or an antecedent drainage stream. The Sweetwater River cuts a narrow 100-meter deep slot through a ridge, yet had it flowed less than a kilometer to the south. The gorge was cut because the landscape was originally buried by valley fill sediments, the river eroded downward and when it hit granite, kept on cutting. Media related to Devils Gate at Wikimedia Commons Devils Gate on the Oregon Trail

36.
Martin's Cove
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Martins Cove is a historic site in Wyoming. The 933 acre cove is located 55 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming and it is located on the Mormon Trail and is also part of the North Platte-Sweetwater segment of the Oregon Trail. The Cove was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on March 8,1977, in November 1856, about 500 Mormon emigrants in the Martin Handcart Company were halted for five days in the Cove by snow and cold while on their way to Salt Lake City. The Martin Handcart company had begun its journey on July 28,1856 which was late in the season. Although the number who died in the Cove is unknown, more than 145 members of the Martin Company died before reaching Salt Lake City, on November 4 the company and rescuers forded the bitterly cold Sweetwater River and sought shelter in the cove. That evening a powerful north wind blew the tents to the ground, the tents were set up again, but a blizzard brought heavy snow. The company remained in the camp for five days, unable to proceed due to the snow, a number of the companys cattle died there and were preserved in a frozen state. When the weather warmed, on November 9, the company was able to move on toward Utah, with assistance from the original rescue party and from additional rescue parties that met them along the way, the survivors finally reached Salt Lake City on November 30. Later many other emigrants would pass by the Cove on their way to Utah, California, during the 1870s, Tom Sun, a French-Canadian frontiersman, purchased the area around the Cove and established Sun Ranch. Following the LDS Churchs purchase of nearby Sun Ranch in the 1990s it tried to purchase the Martins Cove property, to operate it as a historic site. In 2002, a bill for the sale of the property passed the House but then stalled in the Senate. The concerns were mainly the result of the land including areas commonly used as campgrounds by emigrant trains, the Pony Express, as a result, the Bureau of Land Management, part of the Interior Department, had to negotiate a long-term lease with the Church. This lease was signed in 2004, and allowed the Church to manage, the Churchs volunteers at the site were also required to simply answer questions rather than approach visitors with anything that could be interpreted as proselytizing. About 100,000 people visit the site each year, of which the majority are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, every year thousands of LDS Youth participate in Handcart Treks through the area near Martins Cove. These Treks involve dressing up in period clothing while spending several days pulling handcarts, the highlight of their Trek is visiting Martins Cove and nearby Devils Gate along with the LDS Visitors Center

37.
Names Hill
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Names Hill is a bluff located on the bank of the Green River in the U. S. state of Wyoming, where travelers on the Oregon and California trails carved their names into the rock. It is one of three notable recording areas along the emigrant trails in Wyoming along with Register Cliff and Independence Rock, Names Hill was located near a heavily used crossing of the Green River. The earliest human recordings at the site are Native American pictographs, european American names began appearing as early as 1822 as mountain men crossed the river on their way to the beaver streams of the Western Rocky Mountains. In 1844, Caleb Greenwood and Isaac Hitchcock lead the first wagon train over what would later be called the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff, along the way crossing the Green River at Names Hill. The wagon trails would rest at the Green River following a 40 miles waterless trek across the prairie, among the more famous names inscribed on the rock is famed mountain man Jim Bridger. Some have disputed the authenticity of the signature as Bridger was thought have been illiterate, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16,1969. Keyser, James D. George R. Poetschat, James D Keyser, George R Poetschat, warrior Art of Wyomings Green River Basin, Biographic Petroglyphs Along the Seedskadee. List of Emigrants Names Carved on Names Hill and Holden Hill on Green River, Names Hill at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

38.
Register Cliff
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An estimated 500,000 emigrants used these trails from 1843–1869, with up to one-tenth dying along the way, usually due to disease. Register Cliff is the easternmost of the three prominent emigrant recording areas located within Wyoming, the two being Independence Rock and Names Hill. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, according to its nomination, the site was where emigrants would camp on their first night west of Fort Laramie. The property was donated by Henry Frederick to the state of Wyoming, to be preserved

39.
South Pass (Wyoming)
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South Pass is the collective term for two mountain passes on the Continental Divide, in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the Central Rocky Mountains and the Southern Rocky Mountains, the passes furnish a natural crossing point of the Rockies. The historic pass became the route for emigrants on the Oregon, California and it has been designated as a U. S. National Historic Landmark. The pass is an open saddle with prairie and sagebrush, allowing a broad. The Sweetwater River flows past the east side of the pass, Historic South Pass is the lower of the two passes, and was the easy crossing point used by emigrants. Wyoming highway 28 crosses the Continental Divide 2.5 miles to the northwest at elevation 7,550 feet, and its crossing is also named South Pass. The Lander Cutoff Route crosses the Continental Divide at the far northwest end of the broad South Pass region, about 25 miles to the northwest of the South Passes, at an elevation of 8,030 feet. Because the Lewis and Clark Expedition was searching for a route across the Continental Divide. Instead, the followed a northerly route up the Missouri River. In 1856 Ramsay Crooks, one of the party, wrote a letter describing their journey, In 1811, pursuing from thence an easterly course, they fell upon the River Platte of the Missouri, where they passed the winter and reached St. Louis in April,1813. Despite Stuarts meticulous journal of the trip, which he presented to Astor and President James Madison, and published in France, for more than a decade, European-American trappers continued to use a longer, more northern route. It included a mountain range to be crossed and had a shorter season for crossing. In 1823 a St. Louis merchant named W. H. Ashley led a party up the Sweetwater to its source, rediscovered the pass, in 1832 Captain Benjamin Bonneville and a caravan of 110 men and 20 wagons became the first group to take wagons over the pass. In July 1836, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding were the first white women to cross South Pass. Between 1848 and 1868, South Pass was the crossing point for emigrants westward, most of whom followed the Sweetwater River across Wyoming to its headwaters. Before the railroads offered an easier crossing in 1869, perhaps half a million emigrants would trek through South Pass, gold had been discovered in the gulches near the pass as early as 1842. However, it was not until 1867, when an ore sample was transported to Salt Lake City, the gold rush led to the establishment of booming mining communities such as South Pass City and Atlantic City. The placer gold in the streams was exhausted quickly, however, in 1884, Emile Granier, a French mining engineer, established a hydraulic drilling operation that allowed gold mining to continue

40.
Emigration Canyon, Utah
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Emigration Canyon is a CDP, township and canyon in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, located east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Range. Beginning at the end of the University of Utah, the canyon itself heads east and northeast between Salt Lake City and Morgan County. The boundaries of the CDP and township are coextensive, they do not extend to the county line, as of the 2010 census, the population was 1,567. Emigration Canyon was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and it is significant in Utah history as the original route used by pioneers entering Utah. It was part of the Hastings Cutoff route used by the Donner Party in 1846, as Brigham Young looked over the canyon, he declared, This is the right place. These words have become famous in Utah history, the event is commemorated with This Is The Place Heritage Park at the mouth of the canyon. Throughout Emigration Canyon, there are historic markers designating camps, trail markers. One example of these milestones is called Lost Creek Camp, hogle Zoo, the main zoo in the Salt Lake City area, also lies at the mouth of the canyon. Emigration Canyon is home to Camp Kostopulos and the Kostopulos Dream Foundation, established in 1967, Camp Kostopulos is a summer camp for disabled children, teens, and Adults. It is adjacent to the historic Ruths Diner, the 8-mile-long Emigration Canyon road has become a popular destination for cyclists, with its gradual climb and quick descent, because of its convenient location next to Salt Lake City. Mormon Trail Media related to Emigration Canyon, Utah at Wikimedia Commons Emigration Canyon Online Emigration Canyon Trails Master Plan Utah. com

41.
Tom Sun Ranch
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Tom Sun Ranch, also known as Sun Ranch, is a historic site along the old Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail, about 6 mi west of Independence Rock, Wyoming on Wyoming Highway 220. The ranchs builder, Tom Sun, was a French-Canadian frontiersman who later became a pioneer cattleman, during the 1870s and 1880s the ranch was typical of many medium-sized ranching operations in cattle country. The ranch site was declared a National Historic Landmark on December 19,1960, at the time of its nomination as a landmark it was one of the best preserved ranches from the cattle ranging period and was 4,120 acres in size. The ranch remained in the Sun family for four generations until 1996 when it was sold to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, since that time some of the ranch buildings have been transformed into a visitor center for nearby Martins Cove, an important Mormon historic site. Structures on the site have been stabilized and repaired, but the setting has been impacted by the development of parking lots, however, large portions of the landmark area, particularly sections in public ownership, continue to retain their historic integrity. Devils Gate List of Registered Historic Places in Wyoming Tom Sun Ranch National Historic Landmark at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

42.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places

43.
Fort Caspar
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The area where Platte Bridge Station was located had been the site of various temporary Army encampments over a period of years before the establishment of the fort, or station itself. In 1847, during the first Mormon wagon train to present-day Utah, the ferry consisted of cottonwood dugout canoes and planking for a deck, with two oars and a rudder. On June 19, Young named nine men to remain to operate the ferry while the remainder of the party continued the journey westward, a group of Mormons returned to the site each summer between 1847 and 1852 to operate the ferry. The ferry was moved to a different spot on the North Platte in North Casper in 1849 and it was eventually replaced with a rope-and-pulley system that could make the crossing in five minutes. In following years, trader John Baptiste Richard established a trading post several miles downriver of the crossing, the U. S. Army established its first presence in the area in 1855, erecting Fort Clay near Richards trading post. In 1859, when the site was part of the Nebraska Territory, Louis Guinard built a bridge at the trading post, called the Platte Bridge Station. From 1860–1861, the Pony Express operated a station at the site, by the middle 1860s, the increasing presence of emigrants and other white settlers in the region began to cause friction with the Lakota and Cheyenne. In response, and partly to protect the new telegraph line, many of these troops, who created a series of stations along the Oregon trail, were from various state units raised during the Civil War. In 1862 the Army used the buildings at Platte Bridge station while building and occupying Ft. Caspar. Guinard, a naturalized U. S. citizen, born in Quebec around 1820 or 1821 had hired his nephew of the same name - Louis P. Guinard, also born in Quebec in 1840 - to come and help build this bridge. Louis P. came and worked for his uncle about three years, becoming a naturalized U. S. citizen in 1863 and he worked on the actual building of the bridge as well as keeping his uncles financial records. Louis Guinard the uncle, fell from the bridge on June 6,1865 and drowned, leaving the property to his nephew Louis P. Guinard, the U. S. troops occupied Guinards buildings for three years during the Civil War. Louis P. Guinard stated that one of the officers promised him $1000 for use of the said buildings and they had gone no more than 4 or 5 miles before he could tell from the smoke columns that the Indians were burning everything. Guinard had left his will in the safekeeping of Major Bullock at Ft. Laramie and he later filed claim to be compensated for Indian depredations but Major Bullock told him the will was lost or destroyed. Unable to produce the will, the case dragged on in the courts for more than 25 years before it was finally abandoned and Guinard was never compensated for his losses. They had previously scouted the area and selected it because the soldiers there were not in the trading post stockade of 14-foot pine logs. Initially only a party of Indians showed themselves to the troops. Late that night a detachment of 14 men of Company I, adam Smith Leib, escorted by 1st Lt. Henry C

44.
TA Ranch Historic District
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For the ranch near Cody, Wyoming that was owned by Buffalo Bill Cody, see T E Ranch Headquarters The TA Ranch was the site of the principal events of the Johnson County Range War in 1892. The TA was established in 1882 as one of the first ranches in Johnson County, the TA is the only intact site associated with the range war, with trenches used by both sides still visible and scars on the nearby buildings. The ranch also documents the expansion and development of cattle ranching in Wyoming, the ranch is located near the North Branch of Crazy Woman Creek south of Buffalo, Wyoming, with the Big Horn Mountains to the west. The property is significant for its role as the scene of a siege in the Johnson County Range War. Significant buildings include, Barn, A log-and-frame building built in 1882, the barn was originally 60 feet by 40 feet, expanded to 75 feet by 60 feet in 1904. The barn was the venue in the 1892 shootout and preserves gunports cut in the upper north and south walls during the battle. Ranch House, Also built in 1892, the one story log house features logs sawn with a circular saw. The major rooms have doors on the south side, for a total of five doors. Rooms have 9-foot ceilings, and the room and western bedroom have tongue. A partial basement excavated in 1910 houses a boiler, the house was also involved in the gunfight and retains bullet scars. Root Cellar, A large 25-foot by 35 feet root cellar was built in 1882, cook House, The L-shaped log cookhouse was built in 1904 in two phases. Milk Barn, The log milk barn was built in 1915, meat House, The 16-foot by 16-foot meat house was also built in 1915 of logs. Hog House, The 1915 log hog house was divided between hog pens and a room for processing and cutting pork and hides, cattle Shed, The open-faced cattle shed was built in 1915 with board and batten walls and a corrugated metal roof. Other contributing structures include a granary, a garage, outhouses, of particular note are the bunkers or breastworks built during the 1892 siege. The cattlemens hired guns dug trenches on a location to the west of the barn that commanded a view of the surrounding country. The local ranchers, homesteaders and townspeople who surrounded them built their own breastworks around the ranch, at least ten breastworks were built and three remain. The ranch was established in 1882 by Dr. William Harris of Laramie, Harris moved the herd to Johnson County to set up the TA Ranch, remaining in Laramie to continue his medical practice, with Charles Ford as ranch manager. As such, Harris was a landowner and was politically aligned with the larger cattle barons

A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains, or a single …

Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, is often referred to as the biggest monolith, but that is generally avoided by geologists. While the surrounding rocks were eroded, the rock survived as sandstone strata making up the surviving Uluru 'monolith'.